Recipes: Thai

July 13, 2011

I am at a week-long photo shoot this week for the tofu book, but wanted to share this summertime dish. It's an oldie but goodie in my repertoire of cooking. This is the recipe that got me to seriously think about the potential of kaffir (makrut) lime leaf. That is, it's not just for curries!

I was introduced to this salad by virtue of having to make it on a regular basis at City Restaurant in Los Angeles, a now-defunct establishment by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. I’d answered a Los Angeles Times help wanted ad, and Susan hired me to work the pantry station. That was the first time I had stepped into a professional kitchen. It was 1993.

City’s Thai melon salad was full of salty, sweet, briny, citrusy, hot flavors. We made it with perfectly cubed watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew for a beautiful presentation. I was entranced by the sheer beauty and complexity that the ‘fruit salad’ offered. It was a wildly popular dish with customers, and in many ways, way ahead of its time. Few mainstream restaurants were serving fruit with fish sauce back then.

Mary Sue and Susan borrowed the idea from a preparation they’d enjoyed in Thailand. Though I’d never run into the dish at a Thai restaurant or during my travels, all the elements make perfect sense in a Southeast Asian manner. It is a refreshing burst of flavor, terrific for summer and all the melons that are coming into market right now.

Last Sunday, my husband and I brought it as an appetizer to a dinner party. Rory made the dressing and I prepped the melon. Just as I was about to cut the watermelon into perfect cubes, I decided to keep the melon on the rind as wedges. That way, people would have a handy handle to hold and a platform to support the chunky dressing. Plus, there was less waste in terms of imperfect pieces of melon flesh. It made for a novel presentation and I had turned a salad into a finger food. Except for Rory, no one else at the party cared about my cleverness. They just ate it up. Our host poured lots of riesling for a splendid way to start the evening.

May 23, 2011

My dear friend Linda came down from San Francisco for an impromptu lunch yesterday. I was too tired from having finished the Asian Tofu manuscript (hurray!) to make an elaborate meal for us. I needed something quick and easy.

Linda loves big flavor and chile heat. My solution was in a lovely bunch of lemon basil (bai maeng-lak) that I’d purchased on Saturday from the Hmong vendor at our farmer’s market. If you’re not familiar with lemon basil, get a hold of some.

This is the fresh herb season and I typically overdose on lemon basil. Their delicate, light green leaves are slightly peppery with elements of lemongrass, basil, and mint. Lemon basil is not widely used in Vietnamese cooking as we have herbs such as kinh gioi and tia to. (See the Herb Primer for details.) However, lemon basil is used in other Southeast Asian cuisines. For example, the Thais employ it in soup with shrimp. (I recently it on a crostini topped with the sardine in spicy tomato sauce.)

August 30, 2010

Trade, travel, and empire have fused together the cuisines of Asia in many delectable ways. This spiced chicken-and-rice dish reflects the Muslim-Indian-Thai culinary marriage.

You may not know of khao mok gai (also spelled kao mok gai) but it is deliciously complex in perfume and flavor. In fact, in the span of a week, I ate it three (3) times while I was in Sydney, one of the greatest places for Thai food outside of Thailand! Go to one of the Chat Thai restaurants for a very good rendition.

Hell bent on replicating it, I found a recipe in David Thompson’s new book, Thai Street Food. I’ve made it several times, the first following the recipe and it was superb. Then I tweaked it slightly for the resulting khao mok gai recipe below. (Disclosure: I provided an official book jacket endorsement for Thai Street Food. Thompson’s recipe for this dish was one of the reasons why.)

But if you make this Thai version of biryani, you’ll have enough for 8 people, or several rounds of eating. Add a salad and you’ve got a celebratory meal that will be sure to WOW your family and friends.

A few notes:

Basmati is my substitute for the aged long-grain rice (e.g. jasmine) that would likely be used in Thailand.

The use of dairy (here it's yogurt) and combining cilantro and mint is unusual for Thai cooking but it works for this hybrid dish.

The chicken and rice are great on their own but add some tart-spicy-sweet sauce and it enlivens the entire dish, making it bright and spritely. The spicy mint sauce below is akin to an Indian green chutney but the galangal zing skews it toward Thailand. Or, you can use some sweet Thai chile sauce.

Make the paste and fry the shallots a day in advance to get a head start.

Use a heavy-bottomed, large, wide pot that you would braise a big stew to ensure that things cook evenly. I used an All Clad 6-quart pan.

Thai cardamom is available at well-stocked Thai markets but regular green cardamom works great.

Thai cardamom (left), Indian green cardamon (right)

Dive into the khao mok gai recipe below and parse the cultural influences as you cook and eat. For more background information on khao mok gai, read "Biryani, Bangkok Style" by Austin Bush, a photographer and writer in Bangkok.

August 22, 2010

The sun decided to make an appearance this past week in Santa Cruz for longer than just a couple of hours a day! I was unfortunately stuck in my office reviewing edits on a writing project. After finishing on Friday, it time for a real weekend.

To start things off, Rory opened up a liter bottle of a dry Riesling and I made Thai grilled chicken (gai yang). Mymenu choice was inspired by two things: (1) the jar of Thai sweet chile sauce I recently made and (2) memories of a fabulous rendition of gai yang at Sailors Thai, a renowned restaurant in Sydney, Australia.

I had basically given up on ordering cloyingly sweet grilled chicken at Thai restaurants, but my dining buddy that evening, Bangkok-based journalist Jarrett Wrisley, convinced me to order the signature Thai dish. He was prescient in saying, “If this is a good Thai restaurant, they should at least do this well.”

We were startled by how good the gai yang was at Sailors Thai. Jarrett and I politely fought each other over every last bit of flesh and tangy-spicy sauce.

Sailors Thai was started by David Thompson, the chef/owner of Michelin starred nahm at the Halkin hotel in London and the soon-to-open outpost at the Metropolitan in Bangkok. David is one of the foremost authorities on Thai cuisine. He is feisty in nature and uncompromising in his cooking. Over the years, he has elevated Thai food to a high level of craftsmanship and respect that it deserves.

Thompson’s cookbooks, Thai Food andThai Street Food are phenomenal works. Thai Food is one of my reference books and I used it to work up this gai yang recipe, which is frankly super easy.

Hardline traditionalists would use a small chicken (think game hen size) but I opted for chicken-leg and-thigh quarters. They are juicy, cost less, and taste great.

Brush the sweet chile sauce on at the end or serve it on the side. Do both, if you like. You can’t lose.

June 01, 2010

I’ve had a hankering for hot wings these days and it’s not even close to Super Bowl Sunday, the uber chicken wing event in America. At many of the hippest Asian restaurants these days, there is some version of chile-hot, savory-sweet chicken wings. From RockSugar PanAsian Kitchen in Los Angeles to Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon, to Momofuku in New York, Asian-style of chicken wings are on the appetizer menu. Naturally, I wanted to make my own.

Admittedly, I’m partial to the renditions that involve Southeast Asian ingredients, fish sauce, garlic, and chiles. Can you blame me?

When I had the wings at Pok Pok by Ich Truong and RockSugar by Mohan Ismail, I was hooked. Ich (“Ike”) claims that his version is from Vietnam and Mohan is a talented, smart Singaporean chef who monitors and delivers on tasty Asian food trends. (Read more about Mohan Ismail and RockSugar in my post, "Can Real Asian food be mainstreamed?" on MarkBittman.com)

It was hard to decide whose version was better as they were both addictive to eat. At RockSugar, my husband and I had minor squabble as to who should/would eat the last one. We also could figure out if this style of wings is Vietnamese or Thai or something else. Shed some light, if you happen to know.

My solution is to make spicy Asian chicken wings at home. That way, you can have as many as you want.